McGill University, like all universities, has an administrative superstructure and an academic structure overlaid one on the other. As with many universities, this superstructure is generally ignored by much of the student body. The spate of recent controversies over the administration and student input, from the recent course cuts to the Provisional Protocol regarding Demonstrations makes this a good time as ever to talk about how our university should be run.

Before we talk about how McGill‘s governance, the most basic question to ask is: what is McGill’s purpose? At its most fundamental level, the answer is to deliver a post-secondary education and award certificates certifying completion of such an education, but even that is an incomplete description. Different post-secondary institutions have radically different aims; a small liberal arts school may not share priorities with a vocational school, and as such, they need to be governed in different ways.

Indeed, a chief purpose for McGill is to be a global research university. Whether this should be the case is a separate question—­one that probably is inextricably tied with the bundle of factors that influenced our individual decisions to attend this institution. That said, we return to the question of student involvement in campus issues. The size and scale of this institution—over 22,000 full-time undergraduates and over 6,500 full-time graduate students, not to mention the faculty, buildings, or monetary holdings and investments—make it large enough to justify having a rank of dedicated administrators.

How these administrators should relate to the student body is another question. Transparency is critical; while the university should not be obligated to follow the demands of any group of students, it should at least make available information on its activities. In that respect, the university’s recent attempts to exempt itself from Access to Information requests filed by a variety of students is problematic.

The two realms of decision-making where student input should be taken most seriously are those relating to teaching and pedagogy, and those relating to student life (e.g. residences, clubs, etc.). Here, the university should not only clearly explain policies and solicit feedback, but actually mould policies based on student input, especially on issues where a representative sample of students would have an opinion. A case in point would be the recently announced course cuts to the Faculty of Arts; administrators should not only consult with students—as they have to a limited extent—but should be willing to make substantive policy changes based on student concerns. However, they are not obligated to do so.

This approach would be more appropriate on issues such as university finances and investments. The most recent example of this is the campaign to divest McGill’s finances from various fossil fuel companies, a movement I have commented on previously. The administration recently received petitions from Divest McGill, with a promise of a review process. Whatever the result of the review process, the university will have fulfilled its obligation to the students, in the sense that it provided an avenue of dialogue, and reviewed the substance of student claims.

The basic point here, obvious as it may seem, is that university administrations, especially those that manage large research institutions like McGill, should receive and listen to student input, but not be obligated to actually tailor their actions to the substance of these demands. Full student management is certainly feasible, and probably desirable—in a small liberal arts university, where it would not be unwieldy to have the student body involved in day-to-day decision-making beyond a consultative role. However, the main point we must remember when talking about university governance is that a university is not a nation, but an institution that can easily be opted out of. As such, the social contract that the administration enters into with students (and vice versa) carries fundamentally different standards of obligation.